WHILE LAUNCHING large grain bins during a drought may seem counter-intuitive, Australian harvesting equipment manufacturer Dunstan are following what is a distinct grain industry trend toward bigger gear.
Dunstan, managing director, Craig Miller said the companies new range of bins included a 150 tonne mother bin, the largest the company makes.
“The new range includes a 130 and 150 tonne mother bin, it comes standard with a 16 inch auger and a hydraulic steel roof as well as flow control shutters inside the bin, both front and rear half, which gives the operator control over the grain inside,” he said.
“Farms are getting bigger and with that farmers are looking for economies of scale.
“Larger equipment, including mother bins and chaser bins, make their overall business more efficient.”
Mr Miller said the move to larger bins is across both mother and chaser bins.
“Dunstan has been around for 53 years and what we are seeing is a lot of customers have a smaller mother bin, say a 70 or 80t, and they become aware we are making the larger bins and trade up to a 130 or 150t bin, it is becoming very common,” he said.
“Customers who may have had a 15 or 18t chaser bin, are now going up to between 31 and 39t.”
Mr Miller said the company is even going as large as 60t chaser bins to meet farmers needs for more efficient harvesting.
“We have a customer who is upgrading from a 25t, he runs a high capacity Case IH header and is about to move to a 60-foot front, so he will be pulling off a lot of grain and he wants a bigger chaser bin,” he said.
Mr Miller said farmers do have concerns about compaction with the larger chaser bins.
“Flotation is important, soil preservation is very important, we are seeing a lot of customers on control traffic systems, so three-metre centres typically on a 12m system,” he said.
“The tyres we use, the wheels, the number of axles we use is important.
“The 60t chaser bin we are building will be on a tri-axle for better weight distribution and flotation, we will also put a special type of tyre designed for lower compaction on it.
Mr Miller said the bins had been well received at field days across Australia.
“We have just been at Elmore in Victoria which is the last of the season for us, then it is back into finishing off the season and building our customers bins.”
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